Category: Core Strength

Prepare for your A race with a multi-day triathlon training camp experience.

Open Sky Training camps offer extensive coach contact, 12-56 mile open road rides with specific workout prescriptions aimed at race events, small group swim skills development at Bard College pool, open water lake swims, and sport specific clinics. Run & ride beautiful vistas, combine routes to go any distance, and enjoy delicious food in the company of fellow athletes.

The camp fee of $360 includes accommodation, coaching, and all meals (the food is outstanding).

Aimed at developing experienced athletes, this group training program is designed for an athlete to peak for a June Half Ironman or Olympic. Get your training and racing off to a good start with some structure, camaraderie, and enjoy the beauty of the park in the winter.

Athletes are streamed (basic, intermediate, advanced) based upon current fitness and athletic progression. Focus is on skills mastery, functional strength, race strategy and pacing, and aerobic development. Athletes meet twice a week for group training sessions. Solo workouts are prescribed throughout the remainder of the week.

This USAT sanctioned program will develop your fitness, skills, and knowledge of the sport so that you compete at a new level of proficiency.

The fall is a wonderful time of year… The temperatures are cooler and you can introduce focus blocks into your training to improve on personal limiters. During the race season, the focus is on race specific preparation, but the fall allows you to step back, be disciplined and address gaps when you don’t have so many competing priorities.

Good examples are:

Improve your run speed potential – Complete a focused run program with speed work aimed at a short higher intensity race such as a 5k or 10K. You have to run faster to run fast.

Lack force development on the bike – Complete a focused progression of strength development including anatomical adaptation, maximum strength, and power development phases, before returning back to a strength maintenance routine.

Want to improve your FTP – Complete a focused program of higher intensity intervals on the bike that drive up your lactate threshold and V02Max, before returning back to longer endurance work.

Lack flexibility and constantly plagued by niggles & injuries that slow down your season progress – Get off the couch, focus on strength development & stretching to improve your durability and range of motion.

Not comfortable on your bike at high speed or in a group – Complete a bike skills workshop & then integrate the skills practice into your weekly routine.

The key to year over year improvement is to use the early part of the season to close a gap in your athletic capabilities. Focus on 1 gap not 5. We all have 5 things we want to fix. Try fixing 1. You will be amazed what a difference it will make and how you will release new performances in the next year.

The successful and improving athletes are the ones who are disciplined and look to improve one aspect of their overall performance each year. Do this now when the stakes are lower, and then you can integrate this progress into your regular training progression in the new year. Trying to do this when the weather is warmer and races are upcoming is too late.

Not sure what to do. Speak to a coach. A detailed discussion about your strengths and opportunities is a place to start followed by commitment to a few smaller goals during the tail end of the year.

Startline Coaching is offering a two month “off season” program to work on weaknesses, strength deficits, and add some variety to your training. The “off season” is a period of de-training and essential mental and physical revitalization. But as we all know, it all so often turns to couch surfing and weight gain through the holiday period.

Add some structure to your fall with a group training program. This is also a perfect program for those returning to endurance training after a long lay off. The program is purposely aimed to address the niggles we all feel after a racing season and help those looking to establish a training routine. The goal of the program is to set you up for a successful 2019 training progression and race calendar.

The USAT sanctioned program culminates with a running event to baseline your off season fitness.

Open Sky Training camps offer extensive coach contact, 12-56 mile open road rides with specific workout prescriptions aimed at race events, small group swim skills development at Bard College pool, open water lake swims, and sport specific clinics. Run & ride beautiful vistas, combine routes to go any distance, and enjoy delicious food in the company of fellow athletes.

2018 Camp schedule:

May 18-20 – Led by Startline Coaching – Coach Peter

June 8-10 – Led by Startline Coaching – Coach Peter

June 22-24

August 3-5

The camp is fully catered (the food is outstanding) and includes accommodations while spots in the house last

Endurance athletes spend way too much time in a single plane of motion. This plane is directly forward (known as the Sagittal plane). The result is incredible development in the one plane of motion but under development of the stabilizing muscles. The result is often niggling or recurring injuries – plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, patellofemoral syndrome, Iliotibial band syndrome, etc.

We all know the list of common chronic injuries. These injuries often stem from muscles being asked to perform work to compensate for weaknesses elsewhere. The solution is to place the body in positions where the stabilizers are activated and developed. In doing so, the athlete will be increasingly resilient to break down & injury.

In the off season & throughout your training progression, be sure to not only execute core and hip extension strength exercises like planks, rows, squats, and deadlifts, but do so in progressively more challenging balance position. For injury resistance, consider stability development a priority over force development. Body weight exercises are sufficient.

Stretch cord pulls extended on one leg

Single leg romanian deadlifts

Single leg squats on a block extending the suspended leg in different directions – behind, in front, or to the side. Add complexity by standing on an unstable surface

Planks with one leg up or moving, plank jumpers (moving from legs closed to open), plank on an exercise ball, and side plank rotating to push up & return, etc.

Woodchoppers on a bosu ball

There are many variants to the basic strength exercises we all do. The key is to challenge the body to find balance and stability progressively. Start simple and add complexity every 2-3 weeks.